I wanted to experience TMO 2.5 in all of its glory, so I deactivated all RSRDC-related Mods and began a new career out of Pearl on 2 January 1942. I selected a Gar class and purchased two LT JG’s - one with “Command Presence” and the other with “Tin Can Crossover”.

Departed Pearl on the 3rd and made the high speed run to Midway to refuel and make for the patrol zone (PZ). Standalone TMO 2.5 displays the PZ on the map, which is a nice feature. The PZ for Objective #1 had a radius of 150 nm centered on a point about 175 nm SSW of Tokyo Bay.

I reached the boundary of the PZ late on the 17th and continued on toward the center at a sedate 10 knots. Just after 0500 (Honolulu time, GMT-10), running at TCx1024, experienced the familiar HMI (human-machine interface) slowdown that signals a nearby TF or convoy. I hit the <ESC> key and dove the boat to 100’. Nothing. I selected the sonar room and manually spun the wheel. That produced two contacts. Once sounded like a merchant, the other a warship. I tagged each appropriately and selected “send bearing to TDC”. The navigation map displayed the two bearing lines. I waited a minute and did another manual sweep. With this information in hand I was able to plot an estimated course. After a 10 minute high speed run, I submerged again and was rewarded with the following display on the navigation map. The time was 0529.

At this point I minimized the game and checked the lunar phase for this location. The Moon was waxing crescent, 5% disk and moonset had already occurred. Sunrise would be at 11:48. Visibility was perfect – winds were 0 m/s. Ideal for enemy ASW operations.

Returning to the game, I continued toward the plotted intercept point. The convoy was moving “fast” so this could be anything 12 knots and above. Going to 26’ decks awash made sonar available. Manual scans revealed 2 or 3 escorts and at least 3 merchants.

The first ship sighted was a Minekaze DD. This was quickly followed by a Conte Verde-style Liner of 18K+ tons. A report to HQ yielded a sink ships objective. A second merchant leading the Liner became visible – a 6,700 ton Kiturn Maru.

After tracking the lead merchant for the requisite three minutes, speed was computed as 18 knots, course 206°. Tempted as I was to target both the Liner and the merchant, dud torpedoes and the juiciness of the Liner as a target argued for directing all torpedoes toward it. I settled on a salvo of 8 – all four stern and four bow torpedoes. The Conte Verde Liner had a draft of 24.6. I set the depth for 10’, speed slow, and impact trigger. Following is situation as of 0553.

In all, five torpedoes hit the Liner, three missed. All torpedoes that hit detonated.

After withdrawing to the west, I turned and made a high speed run to reacquire. There were two Kiturn Marus still available and over five hours of darkness remaining.

A sound check at 0800 showed that the convoy had reduced speed and changed course. This attack would be made from the port side of the convoy – I’d use the four remaining stern torpedoes.

This time I set up around 3,300 yards off the track. The convoy leader was one of the Kiturn Marus. The lead DD had apparently remained behind to search for the sub that had killed one of its charges.

The target appeared and a report to HQ produced another sink ships objective. The target speed was 7 knots, course 246° in an S-curve pattern.

The flank Minekazi appeared. Once again, I’d have to hustle in order to clear the area before the DD caught sight of the sub.

After firing the salvo, I was perfectly positioned for the escape so very little maneuvering was required.

As the sub withdrew, the Minekaze bore in. About a minute before the first torpedo was supposed to hit the DD increased speed to medium. I went to 26’ and 11 knots.

The Minekaze’s searchlights went on and it increased speed to fast. The target took no evasive action. This is typical AI behavior. Once a convoy is moving in S-curves, it will continue to do so even when attacked. Stupid AI.

At 0837, the first torpedo hit. It was a dud. The next three detonated.

I ordered the sub to full surface and flank. A second escort appeared – the Kisaragi – going medium speed. In the interval, the Minikazi had also slowed to medium. A plot of their courses on the nav map showed that they were headed for the point from which the attack had originated.

When the Minekazi accelerated to fast (I estimated it at 33 knots), I had to resist a strong impulse to dive the sub. Past experience showed that a DD as close as the Minekaze (about 3,000 yards) would spot a sub on the surface. However, once submerged, the sub would only be able to creep away at 1 or 2 knots and would inevitably be picked up on the DD’s active sonar. TMO 2.5 has reduced Japanese visual night sighting capabilities to something close to realistic, making my maneuver possible. In the event, I kept the TBT on the Minekaze and waited to see if it would open fire. It actually did – it fired a star shell about 2,000 yards astern.

The following screen shot shows the two DD’s preparing to search for the American sub, now about 3,000 yards away traveling at 20 knots.

I haven't play 2.5 yet, I've modded my 2.2 to how I like it anyway, but seems he did tone the visuals down quite a bit as you stated, did it also effect gun range during the day?
Don't know that you've noticed but I've changed my env settings a lot to my taste, I get much more reflection and light on the water from the moon and also played with visuals a tad, but
mostly light values, why it's hard to make a night surface attack half to full moon, I can get in about 3000 yards half moon and 2000 yards with no moon.

I really enjoy the TMO traffic alone, but miss the larger convoys. I have added a lot of traffic, but mostly late war to hug the china coast, go in between the small islands and reefs with air cover during the day. I made this traffic very hard to attack as you can only attack from one side due to the shoreline and you're almost always in 100ft of water or less. I may break it out seperate as a small mod if you wanna give it a try, mainly thinking of the "Barb's" attack, going in close to the China shore, even into some of the harbors. I do have several added minefields where the mines are on the surface you have to be careful.

paulhager

02-20-2012, 03:15 PM

MWolfe1963 -

I had two big complaints with SH4: no direct radar input to the TDC and no realistic night surface attack. The 3D TDC mod, incorporated into TMO 2.2 and now the reduction in night visual range, part of TMO 2.5, have address them.

RSRDC seems to suppress some of the best features of TMO. On the plus side it provides historical battles, though it has that terrible Yamato bug starting in mid-April. It would be nice for RSRDC to be updated/fixed to render it compatible with the latest TMO version.

I haven't looked at TMO-compatible graphics mods. I will note that my last attack on this patrol occurred close to full moon. The visuals were pretty good for that.

MWolfe1963

02-20-2012, 11:09 PM

MWolfe1963 -

I had two big complaints with SH4: no direct radar input to the TDC and no realistic night surface attack. The 3D TDC mod, incorporated into TMO 2.2 and now the reduction in night visual range, part of TMO 2.5, have address them.

RSRDC seems to suppress some of the best features of TMO. On the plus side it provides historical battles, though it has that terrible Yamato bug starting in mid-April. It would be nice for RSRDC to be updated/fixed to render it compatible with the latest TMO version.

I haven't looked at TMO-compatible graphics mods. I will note that my last attack on this patrol occurred close to full moon. The visuals were pretty good for that.

The Yamato bug is easy to fix. I'm guessing 90% of RSRD groups are set to spawn once, whereas TMO's constantly respawn. Here is one minor mistake RSRD made in that he forget to change it and it's set to spawn every 24 hours. You can fix it with notepad easily if needed.

No fog

Moon is actually full. Basically I adjusted the clouds intensity and tiling values, this and adjusting light, water reflection and wake values, night attacks are fairly historic. I also made the back sky darker.The way I have it, very dangerous to attack in half-full moon, but 1/4 -no moon you can really get in close. I prefer the TMO 2,2 visuals as are, visual values effect daytime as well as night, no seperate value for each and I like the strong day values and the enemy being able to shoot at you from 10,000 plus yards in clear weather. I suspect 2.5 has niled that somewhat.

This shot show clouds away from the full moon, as I can recall still lighter that TMO alone, but most the light reflections stay near the moon, this is fairly dark and I still use a fairly dark horizon, but not as black dark as 2.2 is alone. I am not sure if in 2.5 the horizon is still black, but on moonlit nights I got tired of the dead black nights of 2.2. Right now even with intense light reflections near the moon, the horizon away from the moon stays darker, but I may adjust it a lil more darker.

With light fog, even with a full moon you can pull off decent attacks from 3000 yards.
http://i651.photobucket.com/albums/uu235/Armistead1424/SH4Img2011-12-01_213229_984.jpg

As I understand it and after much testing, it's not so much the direction of the moon that makes you have to plan your attacks based on moon position, but reflection values on the water, but you still get the same result. I notice when I increase light reflection on the water the enemy can see much better. Simply, if you toned down water reflection values it really doesn't matter how you approach based on moon location. In the next shot you see I have a strong water reflection, but it was too much, so I toned it down. The danger of being spotted is being in lighted water reflection, up or down moon, it's hard to get away from, so I suspect that's why most env. mods keep it toned down.

A very important value many don't grasp for night surface attacks is bow wake, the value more or less determined by speed of sub, very dangerous in calm water, rough water has a value that effects wake values.

Course you never know the crew ratings, veteran they get a high plus. One issue I had with RSRD and TMO is that few large captial ships get good ratings, most are default "competent", yep, even BB's and CV's, etc... no merchants that I've seen get good crew values. Yes, it's mass work to change values on 1000's of ships, so most mods only changed crew ratings on the escorts since they hunt you. I went in and changed many ratings on merchants and capital warships to elite, they react better, repair faster and spot you quicker.

I think you run the IJN radar fix for TMO, that corrects radar type and lowers the minheight values, much needed fix.

paulhager

02-23-2012, 01:46 PM

MWolfe -

You said the Yamato bug is easy to fix. How?

MWolfe1963

02-23-2012, 11:33 PM

First, you'll need to locate you RSRD 502 folder, I assume it's in your SH4 mods folder, so find it and open it, then

Data/Campaigns/Campaign

Should see all the mis. folders, find 44b Jap_ Taskforce mis file and RIGHT click on it, open with NP,

This group is way down, Rnd Group 10, so scroll more to the bottom. If you notice each group usually has a group name,
then all the parameters for the group, so herewe have all the spawn and group parameters under {RndGroup 10} Since Lurker
uses historic groups he only allows one spawn which is the MaxInst {Maxinstances} setting, by default it's 10,000, you simply
need to set it to one, that way this group only spawns once.

FYI, after the group settings, you'll see a list for all the ships in the group, I only showed the Yamato. Here is where you can adjust cargo,
crew ratings, ect...

Oh yea, if you're using RSRD, you'll have to deactivate it, make changes and reactivate it for changes to work, this is common for any mod changes or
you could make a small mod instead.

MWolfe1963

02-24-2012, 03:10 AM

Paul, I use NP a lot and noticed I left out the first paragraph above, will go fix it now.

paulhager

02-24-2012, 03:19 AM

This group is way down, Rnd Group 10, so scroll more to the bottom. If you notice each group usually has a group name,
then all the parameters for the group, so herewe have all the spawn and group parameters under {RndGroup 10} Since Lurker
uses historic groups he only allows one spawn which is the MaxInst {Maxinstances} setting, by default it's 10,000, you simply
need to set it to one, that way this group only spawns once.

FYI, after the group settings, you'll see a list for all the ships in the group, I only showed the Yamato. Here is where you can adjust cargo,
crew ratings, ect...

Oh yea, if you're using RSRD, you'll have to deactivate it, make changes and reactivate it for changes to work, this is common for any mod changes or
you could make a small mod instead.

You didn't say which file or where it is located. I just did a global search in the RSRDC Mod for "Operation TEN-ICHI-GO" and nothing was found. Next I did a global search in the MODS directory - still no joy. I tried a search for "BBYamato" - nothing. Searching for "Yamato", turned up several files - none of them the right one.

I'm stumped.

MWolfe1963

02-24-2012, 07:22 AM

Read last one, I included info, but if you go to your SH4 dir, open your mods folder where you place all your mods and find RSRD mod and follow the rest.

WernherVonTrapp

02-24-2012, 08:19 AM

Read last one, I included info, but if you go to your SH4 dir, open your mods folder where you place all your mods and find RSRD mod and follow the rest.You can do this on the fly? I thought you could only do this upon first loading the mod. That is, I thought your SHIV/Saved Games files would override this.

BTW, Paul, stand-up job on the night action.http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b456/archangel501/Smileys/2e379fec.gif Can this be done using the current version of TMO in tandem with RSRDC, or only with TMO? I'm a bit on the neurotic side when it comes to historical accuracy and dropping RSRDC from the line-up, for me anyway, is easier said than done. It's almost like trying to quit a well entrenched habit. I'd like to give it a go, but then again....
Anyway, it's good to see that somebody around here is still inclined to posting action reports. A certain well known veteran, well, I won't name any names (coughing: MWolfe), but he used to post such reports regularly. Now, rumor has it, that he's been defrocked as a sub skipper and was last seen sitting on a curb with a certain bottle in the El Barrio district of NYC. http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b456/archangel501/Smileys/a748e0b6.gif Who knows what the real story is? Another rumor suggests that he's been drafted into the army, and still another has him living in the bell tower at Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b456/archangel501/Smileys/df431477.gifOh well, anyway, great job on the night action, and thanks for sharing.http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b456/archangel501/Smileys/a39c1860.gif

MWolfe1963

02-24-2012, 09:51 PM

The last line in the directions

"Oh yea, if you're using RSRD, you'll have to deactivate it, make changes and reactivate it for changes to work, this is common for any mod changes or
you could make a small mod instead."

For any mod to work or changes it won't work for with a saved game. Many make changes to the base game before they start, others make smaller mods.
If you make a smaller mod, most you can just load up in port without starting a new career.

Simply, if you want to correct this flaw for good, just fix it in the RSRD mod itself, you'll never have to load a mod. If you want to continue in a career, make a small mod with the settings above creating folders following the same paths.

I did do a recent patrol report after many months of not doing one, but who can compete with Paul's reports?

paulhager

02-25-2012, 04:10 AM

Thanks, I found it. Funny thing - I can't get the search function to work on the ".mis" files. Using "*.*" doesn't work - even putting in the complete filename doesn't work. I can find keywords in text files, Bat files, doc files, etc. Very bizarre. Must be some weird Microsoft thing...